Messages

Remember Erpy!

Nothing on AGDI Forums makes a DIFFERENCE because you deleted it!

It's gone!

Get over it!

Jodo Kast

If you're saying that the quotes I took from your posts are no longer relevant evidence because one of the threads is no longer on the public forum, I'd like to remind you that the "deleted" thread is still in the moderator forum and can be returned if I would have to.

"Get over it" is exactly what I wanted to say to you. According to your previous post, not me but you were the one who started beating this particular dead horse as an excuse as to why you weren't going to help anybody locate your demo. You using me as an excuse was something I didn't like at all. Whether you have a demo or not is not known. All I mentioned is that you promised screenshots and a demo and that you didn't deliver.

I was actually expecting you to react on my points. I'm disappointed you simply pretend I didn't answer your post.

Okay, I'm going to try and keep this as civil as possible, so my post won't get deleted, but you're rapidly wasting your credibility in my book.

Thanks for understanding.

I don't understand anything. And I don't think I'm the only one.

Please see my previous message regarding my demo and Kazaa.

The problem is that your directions are not sufficient. Nobody can find it. And people who complain about it are labelled by you as whiners.

If Erpy had not deleted my posts and banned me from their forums I would be more than happy to help you with Kazaa.

Nobody's gonna blame ME for YOUR attitude. I think you're just looking for excuses. This is the silliest thing I've ever heard. Perhaps I should explain once more...

- The meaning of our game making forums is to allow people to help each other with game making questions. It's a crossbreed between the technical forum and the critics lounge. Not a recruitment place and we'd rather not have too many people just using it to draw publicity to their own project. You assumed you could just use our forums as a base of operations for your project. You were wrong.

- Your threads kept turning into flamewars. That's not why you were banned. Both sides were at fault. We removed the threads and asked people to drop the subject. We had grown tired of continously watching the thread and warning both sides to remain civil. (didn't work)

- After the threads were removed, we politely asked to drop the subject. Your project has had plenty of publicity, but future threads were doomed to become public spectacles. The rest didn't mind. You did.

- You kept attempting to create new CBR-threads on our forums or posted complaint threads about how we deleted work that "didn't match our style". (poppycock!) Since you were completely unwilling to put the issue to rest, we (and I'm speaking for the rest of the team too) decided to revoke your posting abilities until the whole hype had died down. I mentioned to you that I would lift the ban, but that I just didn't want any more CBR-related threads in our game making forum for a while.

- This forum was more suitable to promote your game, since it's the forum of the engine. (you're not using the forum of the "competition" to attract publicity)

But Erpy made it clear I have to start over in this forum.

Yes, I did and you did.

So you can look at the website or help me with the game (see first post in this thread).

I don't think you're in the mood to take anything I say as constructive, but I need to say it anyway. When I see other threads, I see developers who are answering questions from the visitors and taking feedback into account. You, on the other hand, ignore most of the feedback given to you and hardly answer any questions at all. When people comment on something, they expect you to defend it or agree with it, but you simply don't comment back at all. And when someone asks a question you don't want to answer you either ignore him or insult him. Other developers try to spread their work as much as possible, but you stubbornly refuse to listen to people. This is REALLY the wrong way to keep up your public relations.

Do you get it yet? It's hard to respond to one Erpy who banishes me. It might be better if you used a different name so I don't automatically ignore you.

I could have chosen to use some anonymous fake name, but decided just to use my own account, so I wouldn't feel like doing anything secretive. But I'm not the only one you've been ignoring.

You see, DEMOS EQUAL AGDIFORUMS.

So just because you can't use our fanbase and popularity to feed on means you refuse to share any work? What's the reason? I don't understand.

I am banished and my threads were deleted, the only place where I tell people to expect demos in 2003.

I explained my reasons above. I'm willing to post the links of those old threads, but they no longer work anyway.

Now read the first post of this thread over again. It says demos in 2004.No mention of demos that have already been released.

You kept mentioning a christmas demo over and over again. It was to be found on Kazaa. I have proof to back up my statement. Here's the first posts of two of your threads in the AGDI forums. (one of them no longer in the game making forum)

Posted on 12-24-2003

Laura Bow: Colonel's Bequest Remake Demo is ready for download!

Just search Kazaa for LBCBR and it should come up. It will be easier to download as time passes...

Enjoy! Till Christmas 2004, Have a great new year!

Jodo Kast

Posted on 12-27-2003

Erpy,

Where did the Laura Bow Remake Thread go?

I have screenshots I want to post from the demo for people who can't download it.

I am assuming you guys just want to mess with me. Any info would help as I am getting annoyed.

Jodo Kast

You make promises, so why refuse to live up to them now?

If you want to find them, search for technology demo or lbcbr in Kazaa.

People can't find them. Everyone around here can confirm that.

If the 3 people who downloaded my demos don't share you can blame them.

As the developer, it's YOUR responsibility to get YOUR work to people who are interested. You've had host offers aplenty. You can't pass the blame on others.

I deleted my Test Demos I created specifically for the visitors at AGDIFORUMS. For more than obvious reasons! Now I am banned so the project starts anew (as you can see from the website).

Why did you delete them? I don't see the obvious reasons, unless the reason was that people were disappointed by the demo's and took the liberty to tell you that. And me banning you is no reason to restart your project. Your project is (or SHOULD BE)completely unrelated to any 3th party forum whatsoever!

BTW: I felt the original KQ2 plot was superior to the rewrite, only because I got sick of looking at the muddy VGA graphics. See? Even a good plot can't save bad graphics. You just want it to frickin end already and kiss Valanice. This is my opinion, and I'll trot it out happily...

Completely unrelated to your thread and spam according to your own definitions. Once again, you're just trying to throw a jab at me.

Jodo, your statement that the game will take place in the present somewhat clashes with the statement on your site that it's important to you to keep with the spirit of the original. Blackthorne gave some arguments why changing the timeline may cause complications. It's not just the family tree, it's the entire essence of the game that may be subject to change. And it might make people wonder why Laura simply doesn't use her cellphone to contact the police after the first body is found.

I'm curious to the reason for this change. It's not because you're reluctant to do large amounts of editing on the character models in order to make them fit a 20's look, is it? The main questions are "Why?" and "Are you absolutely sure about this?"

I'm all for overhauls when the game in question calls for it (KQ2), but Laura Bow had a fairly stable plotbase to begin with.

Erpy,

Quit causing problems.

I don't get it. I'm trying to hold a discussion with you about something, without the use of flames or offensive language, so I don't get why you're telling me to shut up. Would you mind telling me what problems I would be causing? Because I pledge innocence at present.

I have had offers to host the file, and FilePlanet is willing to host Laura Bow when it's done - and tested.

I know about the offers. Both Muzlak/Bryce and Angelus offered to host stuff for you. I didn't know about Fileplanet. But since you were asking for feedback, I still don't understand why you keep turning down hosting offers.

If you want the latest check the website.

Do you mean files? At the time of writing, I don't see any downloads on your site.

The Beta and Alpha versions of the game will only be made available from Kazaa if this keeps up.

I think you'd really be punishing yourself that way and not me or anyone else. Developers generally want to spread their work as much as possible. You're the first one I've heard of who threatens to do the opposite. I'm a bit confused.

I don't think that was what Bryce/Muzlak was aiming for.

I'm not going to restart the discussion again, but from what I've learned from the previous thread, the files on Kazaa are inaccessable to just about everyone here. So here's a choice to make:

- If you're no longer interested in spreading your older stuff, that's your choice, but you can take them out of your shared folder, since it's obvious nobody can get them.

- If you ARE interested in spreading your stuff, you should send your files to Bryce/Muzlak through email. He'll host them and post links here and people who read this can download it. Kazaa is not an alternative.

Whatever choice you make, the Kazaa answer will no longer do. Of all posts in the former thread, not a single one contained feedback based on something that was downloaded yesterday/today. (whether the poster supported you or not) That tells me the files really ARE inaccessable, no matter how often you insist they are not. Nobody on either the AGDI-forum or this forum has been able to track them.

That's all I'm gonna say about the subject, it's yours to either utilize or ignore.

Direct link is: http://www.geocities.com/lbcbr2004/characters/index.htm

Although it's still not clear to me if he's still interested in giving people a demo. Last time I checked he still insisted on the use of Kazaa.

That's why we put a little cross on the floor that marks the right spot. It's easy to miss though.

And Erpy, the rock isn't *quite* the only unexpected death. Falling into the moat is fairly easy to do ("They couldn't possibly have made a game that makes it easy to fall into that could they? ... Oh.") and of course, falling off stuff that initially appears fairly innocuous. Even worse though, is seeing death coming and being able to do nothing about it (*cough* witch's cottage *cough*).

I see it depends on what you see as "unexpected". The rock death was the only death where you could get killed by doing something that didn't seem fatal at first. (pushing a rock) All the other things are "watch your step"-cases. Depending on how you see it, "unexpected" may or may not be out of place here. If I fall into a serpent filled moat, I expect to get killed. The mentioning of the witch' cottage made me frown. I take it you're aware of the fact that you can get rid of the witch, right?

Death as a feature is a cop out: an excuse for poor design. Look at Hitman: Codename 47 for an example of where this trait has slipped into a recent game. You had to go through the same level several times, dying frequently, before you gathered enough information to pull off a hit. IO Interactive chose this highly unrealistic and highly irritating approach rather than developing gameplay to the point where you could gather information discreetly rather than blindly rushing in and adapting your strategy to the consequences.

I'm afraid I must disagree. With a couple of exceptions, all Sierra games (most of them better designed than KQ1) allowed the player to die. This has nothing to do with poor or well-done design. It's done to either add a humoristic situation at certain points (Space Quest) or to make the danger more real. (if someone is pointing a gun at you, he won't have the patience to keep saying "don't move" until you're done with those 30 different attempts at escape. After one or two warnings, he'll probably shoot you.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only "unexpected death" in KQ1 was pushing the rock from the wrong direction. Ironically, we were gonna leave that one out at first, but the fans asked us to keep it in for authenticy's sake. All the other deaths involve drowning, getting squashed by a giant or falling into a raging river (the difference between a peaceful lake and a fast-flowing river is fairly easy to spot) and can't really be qualified as unexpected.

The death vs. no death is an age-old debate and the odds seem to be fairly evened. Lots of people don't like to die, lots of others think it's a cool feature. (yes, dying in itself is a feature, it can make certain situations more realistic and add tension to situations where needed)  The person who made this site is a typical example of someone who doesn't mind getting your character killed ever so often. The whole death vs. no death isn't really relevant to KQ in particular.

And yes, KQ1VGA was a litteral remake. We thought it was an interesting way to train ourselves before starting with something bigger like KQ2VGA. Yes, we COULD have tried to take out some of the flaws, but in the end, we'd just have to deal with other people complaining.

Gee, I almost feel sorry for interrupting this slightly off-course discussion.

Also, while the engine is vritually free for commercial use (which seems to be its main attraction), it seems the reality is quite different.

I'm curious how different reality is. The disclaimer still says you can use the engine for commercial games, right? You'll need more than a quote from one game development group to change that.

For example, Erpy on Tierra forums said that he couldn't imagine Chris Jones not getting a share if Tierra made commercial games with AGS. Umm, why couldn't he "imagine" that?

Because that's always been the shared opinion of our team.

Isn't it one of the main AGS advantages? According to him, not giving a share somehow implies being ungrateful, even though one is not obligated to do so.

We'd feel ungrateful, because we've released two full games made AGS already and CJ's frequent updates of AGS partially made that possible.

I can just see that if someone makes fairly good money with AGS and doesn't give its author any "share", the whole AGS community will bitch and whine about how "uncool" that person is. So, in the end, the whole "I don't want to charge money for it because I don't want to feel obligated to update it unless when I feel like it" becomes another excuse.

Okay, reality has already invalidated your point (Fatman) and besides, since when is the opinion of one community an official/legal reason why AGS isn't suitable for commercial games?

And when the "free for commercial use" appeal is gone, one might as well go with something better and more advanced, such as "Wintermute".

The disclaimer still says "free for commercial use", so I fail to see the general point of the initial message. (the disclaimer doesn't say; "it's illegal to send donations if your AGS-powered game becomes a success", by the way)

Bottom line: Don't take the make-game option too seriously and don't claim a statement is an excuse because one user says something that may seemingly (but not in reality) clash with that statement.

I'm off again; please continue with the previous discussion.

It saddens me that its about his nephew rather then himeself. And with these grapics? I dont know what to think...

I've been hearing that complaint a lot. It's interesting how people seem to reason: family of Graham main character in KQ = okay, family of Larry in LSL = bad.

I think information at this point is too scarce to justify gun-jumping. I think the approach taken is a smart move to avoid the main problem with sequels; people who haven't played the previous chapters will think twice about buying it because they're afraid they won't get many of the references or they're afraid of getting previous parts of the storyline spoiled. (and no, there's no way in heck you can convince the average XBOX-gamer to play through some age-old parser games or DOS-based p&c-ers)

Yeah, but imagine buying a game and the first thing you see when you load it up is something along the lines of "This game is freely available for download at XXX.HU.EO.WOO. If you paid for it, then someone just stole from you."
I'd be annoyed.

If it was the only game on the CD, I'd feel ripped off. But that's not the case here. Perhaps you could take this into consideration.

8 years ago, a classmate of mine bought a CD with "30 games" for about 8 dollar. (in dutch florins of course) The main reason for buying it was the picture of the PC version of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo on the cover. When he got home and installed it, he was quite annoyed to see that he could only select Ryu and Chun Li and that there was only one available background. From that moment on, he knew why games were so expensive individually and so cheap when stuffed together. He also knew what to expect when buying those compilation CD's without manual or disclaimer that went into detail about the contents. So anyone who buys a compilation CD and expects plenty of full products is bound to be annoyed anyway because frankly, the contents of those CD's are obtainable through other means regardless. Looking at the price, I think someone with a 33K modem would be gaining money this way.

So, don't worry about the customers. They got more than they paid for in this particular case.

Cool. I'll have to let my fellow Hero6ers know that the game we haven't finished yet is already being sold...

I'm sure your fellow Hero6ers will be thrilled to hear that the project is being publically represented by a 2-years old demo which was mainly produced to keep the fan-base quiet. (and not to attract any "outside attention")

This whole thing feels like a deja vu to me. It happened before. At that time, I was able to convince the guy to put a disclaimer on his website with the homepages of the featured games, which was acceptable to me. (I mean, if somebody is aware that he can download something off the web and he STILL wants to buy that CD, it's his money)

Rodekill, I understand how you feel, but let me assure you you can save yourself the trouble of typing up any complicated readme's containing disclaimers about what you want and don't want to happen to your game, because frankly, those CD distributors don't care a schnitz. How I'm able to tell? KQ1VGA and KQ2VGA already had lines in the readme saying that the game shouldn't be distributed for money and the more recent versions of both games even have a disclaimer that appears when the game is started that says something like "this game is a non-profit production and is not to be sold or rented under any circumstances whatsoever." You can safely assume that if these lines were even noticed (I doubt it myself), they were ignored or payed no attention to.

This looks like just another typical shareware CD to me like the millions of Doom-CD's that flooded the shelves of the book and record stores when the game was first released and internet was hardly public territory. You think the makers of those "Quake + 1000 extra levels + 40 utils"-CD's ever paid a dime to the 1000 level creators and 40 util creators whose work was included? Do you think they were even asked? Do you think any of those util programmers ever was able to succesfully stop the production of those CD's? Three questions, one answer. The concept of distributing shareware is years old, actually. I don't think there's disclaimers regarding the removal of contents from the CD if it's there against the author's wish. The only disclaimer in there is probably that the buyers shouldn't contact the distributor if your game messes up their computer.

I must admit, though, that when I was still into FPS's (they were new at the time) I enjoyed those "Doom + 40 utils + 1000 levels" CD's because I didn't even have the means to obtain those things through another way, nor did I have the time to scout BBS's for them.

Having seen the price of that CD, I find it ironic to see that AGS' first commercial game was offered for a similar price and has lots of work put in it, yet the same amount of money can be made by grabbing share/freeware off the internet and distributing it.

Yes, there is indeed already a team working on such a project, although they don't have a website yet. I think it's mainly the absence of a webmaster or the unwillingness of seeking (overly) early publicity that caused this.

I've talked to one of the members a while back and it seems to have been in progress for quite a while already. He mentioned a large part of the improved screenplay already being done, although there were some delays in the art department. (aren't there always?)

The name they use is "Werewolf Productions" if I recall correctly, but like I mentioned before, they don't have a site yet.

There's a thread on our forums where someone posted the article.

The editor's questions seemed to be completely geared towards the games themselves. Had he asked a specific question about their making or anything technical related, we would have mentioned AGS at once, of course. It wouldn't have made it in had we made a passing reference to it, because the document we sent in was already about two times longer than what's published now (including a QFG2-screenshot which wasn't posted on our website) and he obviously only left those things in he considered 100% relevant to what he wanted to squeeze in there.

A small request which probably goes without saying: if you're going to remake King's Quest III and add things to it, please be kind enough to pretend KQ2+ never existed.

Yep, KQ6 had voices too and they were of high quality.

KQ2+ does not have voices. The sound pack simply contains the digital score. The music was created with the idea of digital music in mind and the MIDI-tunes that come with the game itself were more of a last-minute option for those with slow connections. The digital music pack is highly recommended. (also because AGS tends to mess up MIDI tunes every once in a while; too quiet or not looping correctly)

Tierra decided to stay clear of the addition of a voice pack because there was a large amount of lines that would have to be recorded and recording/editing/scripting in the voices would have taken too long. We were already one and a half month behind on schedule because of the intro movie.

I'm not one of the authors, but I AM a member of the team.

I already expected that your opinion about remakes was based on the remakes Sierra did for the first games of their series. Yes, those were almost 1:1 remakes with updated graphics and sound. The SCI-remake of KQ1 was nearly a 1:1 remake as well. The same goes for KQ1VGA by Tierra; it's a 1:1 remake of the SCI-version.

KQ2+ is completely different from the remake principle that's used in the games you mentioned. It's hardly a remake, it's more like a retelling. Most of the locations you knew from the original are still there, but there are new locations as well. (such as a quest in an underwater realm and the existence of a town) There are some new characters and many of the old characters had their role significantly altered. It's possible that a character who used to be friendly now plays the role of a villain and vice versa. Many story aspects are tied to later games.

The renewal process of KQ2+ can't be compared to the renewal process Sierra performed on LSL1, QFG1, KQ1, PQ1 and SQ1. You might see my own statement as a bit biased, but other people around here aren't on our payroll, so there's no reason not to believe them when they say KQ2+ is radically different from the original.

BTW: if you enjoyed Tierra KQ2, it's Ok. I  don't like Tierra KQ2, it's Ok too. Free speech isn't it?

I don't think many people will respect an opinion that's not properly backed up. That's likely the problem.

You obviously have a strong opinion about remakes, but I can assure you that KQ2+ is not what you think of when you hear the word "remake". Most remakes don't have many additional story elements, characters, locations and puzzles. (about 85% of the puzzles in the game is new to KQ2+) All people are asking is not to automatically assume things without knowing exactly what you're talking about.

Comparison: Technically speaking, the James Bond movie "Never say never again" is a remake of "Thunderball". Without asking whether NSNA or TB are good movies, anyone who says "I'm not gonna watch NSNA because I've already seen TB" will probably be laughed at and rightfully so. It's really not possible to judge KQ2+ (regardless of whether you've played the original or not) if you haven't played it.



(and Whatever: didn't I already ask you to create your own thread if you want to babble on about your über-game? I'll give you a hand. In this link http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=3047 you can post all the stuff about your RPG as you want, but keep it out of this thread if you please.)

erpy, what do you want, some screenshots?
I'll even give you a screenshot of one of my directories with over 10,000 files in it. (That's just my monster set directory!) I wasn't joking when I said there are over 10,000 different monsters to do battle with in my masterpiece. And yes, this is a masterpeice, although it's got a long way to go before it'll be totally complete.

Well, if you wanna post a screenshot, do so. But please create your own thread instead of keep going off-topic in someone else's.

Second of all, I like that idea. The next time people ask Tierra for screenshots, we'll be showing them a screenshot showing all the files in the game's directory. As soon as we find ourselves a rotten tomato-proof umbrella. Okay, I was sarcastic. But I don't think anybody will be impressed by a folder full of files. A couple of REAL screenshots will impress people. Directories filled with files won't.

Do you realize that people tend to favor quality over quantity? Who cares about numbers? Who cares if a game has 1000 or 10,000 monsters in there? Nobody's gonna count them. Yet, the only thing I've seen you talking about is quantity, quantity, quantity. 10,000 this, ten million that....What use is a big car if it kicks the bucket after driving for a minute or two?

Most people don't think Phantasmagoria is Sierra's best game and yet, the game came on 7 CD's.